Our Bureau of Land Management lands are public lands of many uses; the Department of Interior doesn’t think that conservation should be one of them.
To appease oil and gas special interests, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced on September 10th that they intend to rescind the Conservation & Landscape Health Rule, more commonly known as the Public Lands Rule.
Championed by conservationists when implemented just last year, the Rule seeks to acknowledge conservation as a legitimate use and value of our shared public lands. This is increasingly important as Montana and the West grapple with significant challenges like growing recreational use, invasive species, wildfires, and droughts.
With this signaled action from the Administration, the Public Lands Rule won’t even be given a chance. Big oil and gas will win again, while hunters, anglers and those who value healthy wildlife habitat and undeveloped wild places will lose.
Why should we care?
245 million acres of public lands are managed by the BLM, with 8.3 million of those acres in Montana. Right now, these lands are open to public recreational use, but can also be leased by private interests for oil and gas development, grazing, and timber extraction.
The 2024 Public Lands Rule would have added an additional use: conservation. By allowing tribes, states, and/or conservation districts to pay to lease BLM lands – not for the traditional extractive uses, but rather – for conservation, the Public Lands Rule directed the DOI to weigh conservation, recreation, and public access in the same way they consider traditional and extractive uses like grazing, timber, mining, and oil and gas drilling when developing their resource management plans. Additionally, the new rule requires the BLM to consider local input in its decision-making, something we can all support.
With the Public Lands Rule, our federal public lands continue to generate direct revenue while also allowing these lands to recover or remain as they are, thereby supporting the $1.2 trillion outdoor economy that heavily relies on our public lands. It was a win-win.
However, without this rule, these lands will once again be on an all-you-can-lease buffet for oil and gas, logging, and grazing, with no one else involved, and without your say. Millions of acres of public lands – and our outdoor pursuits, small businesses, and gateway communities that rely on them – will suffer.
What can we do about it?
When the Public Lands Rule was proposed in 2023, a whopping 92% of the public comments favored this new approach. Now, just two years later, we need you to weigh in again to prevent it from being scrapped.
COMMENT NOW
Please join the Montana Wildlife Federation in urging the DOI to reconsider this rescission and to instead leave the Public Lands Rule in place. Let’s give conservation a seat at the table; Montana’s outdoor economy, our rural communities, and our sporting traditions depend on it.
The 60-day comment period ends November 10, 2025.
Photo credit: Lisa Ballard
